“In midsummer, on the red-earth hills of western Hunan, all is desolate; the grass and trees wither not from the blight of the autumn wind but from the fierce heat. The wild grass on the slopes is a sheet of yellow; even the three leaves of the wild taro by the water have flopped over in three different directions; the air feels like hot water dashed in your face. A dry, hot wind still blows over the slopes. Coat the skin of a plucked, gutted chicken with salt, hang it out on a bamboo pole in the wind to dry for half a day, and roast it that evening over a dung fire — then it is ready to eat. This chicken has a kind of stinking fragrance. Besides the wind, carrion birds fly in the sky, because the stench of dead bodies rises in the fierce heat and can be smelled high up. Besides the birds, there are the dung beetles that feed on ordure; breaking with their usual habits, they come buzzing up and go hunting for the smell across the slopes. Besides the dung beetles, there is Xue Song, who comes out with an iron spear in his hand to gather firewood. All the other living things hide in the woods to keep cool. Seen from far off, the scorched air churns like a pot of transparent porridge, and this hillside is being boiled in the porridge — that is how the story begins.” — Wang Xiaobo, Wanshou Temple
2023.7.1 — The First Day of July
The sea lettuce is coming. Three excavators and nine bulldozers are toiling away on the sand at the mouth of the Xiaotan River. When people ask me what’s going on, I pretend to be a man who has lived by the sea for many years and tell them, “The sea lettuce is coming — they’re putting up a dam at the mouth of the river to keep it out of the channel.” In fact I’ve never seen real sea lettuce either; this is my first summer spent by the sea.
Today happens to be a weekend again, and there are a great many people on the sand at Damuzhi Plaza — enough to look like dumplings dropping into a pot. Silver Beach’s peak season has truly arrived. Black clouds churn, the wind is damp, the weather a little close and muggy; my skin feels sticky and thoroughly unpleasant, and now I have to shower every single day.
2023.7.2 — Market Day
Today is the fifteenth of the lunar month, the day of the Xiaotan market. By five or six in the morning the market was already a hubbub of voices; I didn’t go out till after eight, and by then the sun was already fierce — without a hat your scalp hurts. The crowd kept growing, more than I could reckon compared with winter, sellers and buyers stretching as far as the eye could see, bustling and jostling. Another striking thing was how many small children there were. Their summer holidays have started: some have come with their parents to wander the market and gawk, and some are the vendors’ own children, playing beside their parents’ stalls.
Besides buying vegetables, today I also made a point of photographing the women vendors at the market. Compared with the polished, refined women you see online or in the big cities, I find their faces truer and closer to life; the marks a heartless passage of time leaves on them go deeper.
Although noon was clear and blazing, by afternoon and evening black clouds had come rolling up and the wind had risen, and walking by the shore was wonderfully cool — you could even feel a dampness in the air. Now and then a few raindrops drifted down and were soon gone; it’s always like this by the sea — when the wind blows the clouds away there’s no rain, and when it blows them back a few drops fall. But it really is the rainy season now. Walking inland from the shore, the wind gets weaker and weaker, and back in the compound it feels sticky again.
When your skin is sticky you have to shower. In winter I showered only once every five to seven days; now I have to shower every day. In winter it took over an hour to heat the water; now it takes only half an hour. In winter I had to shut the bathroom door; now I don’t. In winter, as soon as I’d showered I dived straight into the bed already warmed by the electric blanket; now I can even walk around the living room bare-bottomed. Utterly different from winter.
2023.7.3 — The Mouth of the Baishatan River
A sand dam has gone up at the mouth of the Baishatan River too, to keep the sea lettuce from invading the channel. The dam is tall and broad, like a city wall, and it has penned the water of the Baishatan River in. There isn’t much water in the river, but it has been rising little by little and has formed a small barrier lake. The still water of the river has a greenish cast, unlike the seawater, which is either clear or turbid. What amazes me is that along the rising waterline you can see a great many little crabs — the same kind I saw at the river mouth before; the moment a person comes near or makes a sound, they all scurry into the water.
In the heat I don’t want to light the stove and cook, but you have to cook, so the simpler the better. Boil a little rice, fry two eggs, and with some pickles my lunch is taken care of. Eating is hot too — I sweat as I eat, and when I’m done I’m in a sweat all over and have to wipe myself down with a wet towel. Someone online told me you can make claypot rice: while the rice cooks, lay the greens and some sausage on top. Very simple, and nutritious too.
2023.7.4 — Heavy Rain
“Youth — I heard the rain from the singing house, red candles dimming behind the silk bed-curtain. In my prime — I heard the rain in a traveler’s boat, the river broad, the clouds low, a stray wild goose crying in the west wind. And now — I hear the rain beneath a monk’s cell, my temples already flecked with stars. Grief and joy, parting and meeting, are always heartless; let the drops fall before the steps until dawn.” — Jiang Jie, “The Beautiful Lady Yu”
At some point in the early morning it began to rain hard, crackling and pattering — the heaviest rain I’ve met this year; it fell on and off, now hard, now soft, without stopping, threatening to flood everything. Water ran down the compound’s roads, and pooled between the ridges of the garden beds downstairs — luckily the wheat was already harvested. I stood at the window a long time watching the lines of rain, a long time listening to the sound of it, a long time letting the cool wind blow on me. If I hadn’t quit my job, if I hadn’t left Beijing, if I hadn’t come to the seaside, I wouldn’t have this frame of mind.
Luckily the rain lasted only a morning and then cleared; a steaming dampness hung over the horizon, the sky was a sickly white, the sun came and went, and the wind was strong. In the eight months before this I never felt the dampness here as heavy, but now it’s the rainy season and I have to admit it’s a bit damp after all. The bedsheet feels a little sticky; it’s unpleasant to lie down. Leaning on the sofa feels sticky too. I don’t even want to put clothes on. I don’t like this weather; it’s certainly harder to bear than the cold of winter. I hope it doesn’t last too long.
Toward evening I went for a stroll by the shore; the wind there was strong, and I had trouble even standing my phone tripod steady — I could only lower the pole so the phone wouldn’t be blown over. I shot two clips of time-lapse, because the clouds in the sky were churning and the light and shadow shifting, and it really was beautiful. There were a lot of people at the shore too, some sitting, some walking, chatting, feeling the wind — wonderfully cool, wonderfully happy.
2023.7.5 — A Bright Sunny Day, a Thunderbolt
Today is a big clear day, the sky washed clean after the rain: very blue, spotless, the air fresh, a faint breeze stirring, cicadas crying, the sunlight blazing. The sun is gradually moving south, and the sunlight is gradually reaching into the rooms. Watching how the light changes over the four seasons really is marvelous.
In winter the north bedroom stayed shut the whole time, never opened, sealed up for months; but once spring and summer came I threw the door wide. In spring you can watch the grass outside slowly turn green, the cherry tree flower and set fruit, birds fly up onto the branch to peck at the cherries; in summer the cool wind blows straight through the room, and you stand at the window looking at the blue sky and white clouds, while when it rains the drops strike the leaves with a crackle.
In the evening I went out to the shore again to feel the wind; I took off my shirt and stood there bare-chested, the wind on my skin — an utterly free feeling. The beach at Damuzhi Plaza was packed shoulder to shoulder and noisy, but go west and there are far fewer people; so if you want quiet and cleanliness, go to the western beach.
CoCo Lee has killed herself, out of depression. A shock. People really shouldn’t put too much pressure on themselves; being alive and happy is what matters most — seize the day!
If a person lived purely for himself, with no regard or consideration for anyone else’s feelings, would he still get depressed? Of course, he’d have to be utterly carefree. I’d like to be a carefree person too, living only for myself. At the very least I need a thicker skin. As I see it, so-called depression is just unhappiness, and unhappiness all comes from other people — from considering their feelings, from caring about their judgments. Getting other people to be a little kinder to you is more or less impossible, so the only thing for it is to start with yourself: be a bit stronger, a bit braver, and hit back.
Death isn’t such a bad thing either. For the one who dies it’s a release — an escape from pain, an end to pain. Of course, don’t go dying lightly. But don’t be afraid of death either. Only when a person doesn’t fear death can he be completely and utterly free.
2023.7.6 — My First Swim in the Sea
The swim trunks and the waterproof phone pouch I’d ordered arrived, so I decided to go swimming in the sea today. Down at the shore I took off my shorts and my T-shirt, left my flip-flops on the sand, put my phone and keys in the waterproof pouch and hung it round my neck, and in I went.
The weather today wasn’t great — overcast, cloudy, a strong wind and big waves. Walking out into the sea, the waves shove you to and fro and you can’t stand steady; go out a little deeper and when a big wave slaps you it soaks your head too. And I still had my glasses on, so the lenses caught droplets. Not daring to face the water head-on, I turned my back to the waves, and then you bob up and down in them and get shoved toward the shore. If a wave is really big it can even rip your glasses off — luckily my hands were quick and I caught them as they fell into the water. The seawater is turbid, not clear, and extremely salty. Yes, the seawater is extremely salty — that was my deepest impression. Extremely salty, ptui, ptui, ptui, I kept spitting. I know it’s not nice to spit, but the seawater slaps your face and runs into your mouth, and it doesn’t taste good.
I played in the sea for about an hour, and my skin had begun to wrinkle from soaking. Coming back ashore, the wind on my body was very cold — better to stay in the water, where it was warmer. But I had to go home; I was on my own and had no tow float trailing behind me, and in the water it’s really not safe. Safety first. In my swim trunks, my chest bare, my body dripping wet, I walked happily home.
Back home I quickly rinsed my feet and shoes and my glasses, and turned on the water heater; my hair had grown out a little, but a shaved head feels more comfortable to me, so I buzzed my own head, and when the water was hot I took a warm, lovely hot shower.
(Going about alone always comes with a lot of inconvenience — swimming in the sea, for instance, with no one to watch your clothes — but I will always prefer to travel alone.)
2023.7.7 — Market Day
The twentieth of the lunar month, market day. Today the market is even more crowded than last time — the stalls reach right up to the compound gate. The commonest vegetables this season are potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, corn; there’s every kind of fruit, and seafood, meat and eggs are as plentiful as ever. Peak season means the most residents, of course, and the vegetable-buyers come in an endless stream. The vegetable market is a perfect place for social observation.
I open the windows and the screen windows both, and let the cool wind blow straight through; the wind on my shaved head and bare shoulders is wonderfully cool. I’m lucky to live in such a big place at Silver Beach — two bedrooms and a living room, open from north to south, with both sunlight and cool breezes. In Beijing I lived in a sealed, cramped, narrow little rental, and never once enjoyed a cool breeze or sunlight. That kind of place is hardly fit for a human being.
2023.7.8 — Missing Winter in Summer; the Muggiest Day
Leafing through the photos and videos I took in winter: how quiet Silver Beach was then — empty streets, deserted beaches, a lonely setting sun, still seawater, solitary gulls, a howling north wind, snowflakes blowing across the ground, withered reeds, frozen ponds, pitch-black nights, a silence in which every sound was hushed. Not like summer now, with so many people, so noisy, so thriving — a sharp contrast. I’m also glad I came in the off-season, going from a winter with very few people into a summer with a great many, so I had a long adaptation; rather than going from a crowded summer into an empty winter, which would have been a huge psychological letdown — maybe I’d even have been frightened, maybe I’d even have fled, maybe I couldn’t have lasted more than a few days. Winter was dreadful and hard to endure, and yet deeply bewitching.
It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t had a cola in ages. In Beijing, going a summer without cola was impossible, and I drank it very often — sometimes two or three cans a day. I liked the kind in aluminum cans, not the plastic bottles. The company always handed out a lot of perks at the New Year and other holidays, and you could buy things in the online supermarket, so I often stockpiled cola and drank it slowly. When the weather was really hot, one ice-cold cola was sheer bliss. But now I’ve realized that eating too much sugar does you no good — it’s only a mental stimulant. People in the big cities are always a bit spiritually empty, and need a “drug” to jolt their numbed nerves and numbed lives.
Today is the dampest day yet at Rushan Silver Beach. The fog is very thick and visibility is low; the whole of Silver Beach is shrouded in dense fog — the fields are in the fog, the sea is in the fog, people are in the fog — gloomy, blurred, hazy. And unlike the fog in winter, summer fog is sticky and clammy, like sweat clinging to your skin, thoroughly unpleasant. Yet the beach is crowded, and many people are in the water: little kids rolling about in the shallows, and some swimming out very far offshore without a safety float. And the sea lettuce hasn’t arrived yet.
2023.7.9 — This Year’s Hottest Day, 34 Degrees
At two this afternoon the temperature hit this year’s high — 34 degrees. Yesterday the fog was thick by day and thicker by night, but today the sun came out; a clear day. Lots of people brought out their bed sheets and duvet covers to air, and I hung the mattress pad and the quilt over the railing to dangle outside the window and gave them a proper sunning. The sun is still fairly high now, unlike in winter, when you could air your bedding from inside the balcony.
By evening the air was already very dry; today must be the hottest day. I crossed the open country and came to the shore. There were a lot of people at the shore — children, parents, the old, the young, pretty women, handsome men; the most numerous, of course, were the old people, strolling about by the sea. There were many clouds in the sky, gray-blue to the east, orange to the west, all of them thick yet distinct, with clearly defined shapes. You look all around and can see very, very far; sky and sea are both within your eyes, and it’s as if you’d taken in the whole universe. This is where it differs from the city: the city has too many tall buildings, and the tall buildings block your line of sight and make you shortsighted.
I stood by the shore feeling the wind, looking at the sky, at the sea, at the crowd, watching the daylight slowly dim; when I’d looked my fill I headed back. Someone was hunting cicada nymphs in the little grove with a flashlight. That’s another activity you could never do in the city. To the north the sky was thick with black clouds and lightning kept flashing across it. There were a lot of people on the road, heading back like me; one of them said it was probably raining up in Yantai to the north.
Oh — the sea lettuce has arrived. Just a little, but you can see some on the beach: washed ashore, green, like waterweed, like moss, stuck to the sand and mixed in with the trash. None yet in sheets out on the water. Probably in a day or two there’ll be more.
2023.7.10 — I Dare Take Cold Showers Now
Going out to the shore in the morning, the sun overhead was fierce, but down on the beach and into the shallows the cool came up through the soles of my feet. The weather was glorious, the sky clear for miles, and the seawater looked much clearer for it. Quite a few children were playing in the sea — not like the evening, when it’s crowded, jostling and noisy. Perhaps coming out in the morning is the better choice. I stood bare-chested in the water looking at the sea a while, then rode back. I’d worked up a sweat; back home I turned on the shower head and rinsed my body with cold water. In my seven years in Beijing I never once dared take a cold shower, but now I’m not afraid — clearly my body is far stronger than it was then.
And no doubt about it — showering more means drinking a lot more water, too; sweating, washing my hands, sand on my feet that needs rinsing: this month’s water use is bound to soar. In winter I showered only once a week, drank less, and never washed my hands or rinsed my feet, so of course I used much less water.
The day was clear, but toward evening it clouded over again, misty and foggy, and the air was very sticky. Yes, very sticky; the surface of my body felt as if something had pasted it over — not water and not sweat, but something peculiar to the seaside, and thoroughly uncomfortable. July’s weather is the worst I’ve known in all my time at Silver Beach. There are lots of people at the shore, all come to play in the water; though I had my trunks on, I didn’t want to go in — I dislike this kind of crowded scene far too much. I want to swim somewhere with few people, but alone it’s really not safe. So I just watched a while by the shore and rode back. Back home, sticky all over, I took another blissful cold shower.
2023.7.11 — The Dog Days Begin Today
Today the dog days begin, but the weather at Rushan Silver Beach isn’t very hot — compared with many places. I don’t even need the air conditioning on to sleep. Still, July’s weather really is the worst I’ve known in all my time here. Not hot, but very close and humid, my skin sticky; even the bed is sticky when I sleep. But being able to witness the changes of the four seasons is a very happy thing too.
Walking in the countryside, I saw a little animal bounding along ahead; looking closely, it was a wild hare, gray and very cute. I wanted to photograph it, but it quickly crossed the path and jumped into the grass. I stepped into the grass too and couldn’t find it. I remember last winter I saw a weasel by the roadside. The wildlife here is wonderful. There were a lot of insects crawling on the road. In the little grove there were still plenty of people hunting cicada nymphs, and the ground was left covered with the little holes the cicadas had crawled out of. Some cicadas had already climbed high up the trunks and were crying away. Someone kicked a trunk, and a great many cicadas flew out of the leaves and over to other trees.
There were lots of people playing in the water at the shore, still wonderfully lively; vendors had pushed their carts to the roadside to sell all kinds of sand-digging tools, and other vendors had pushed theirs right to the water’s edge to sell grilled sausages. Women were taking pictures, men were swimming, children were scooping for fish, I was watching, and the setting sun was infinitely lovely.
2023.7.12 — Market Day, Caught in the Rain
Extraordinarily hot; by eight in the morning the sun was already fierce. There was still plenty of food in the fridge and I didn’t need to buy anything — I just went out to the market to wander about, look at the people, the goods on the stalls, take some photos, shoot some video, and soak up the everyday bustle; that alone makes me happy. In the end I bought only five peaches and five carrots. Oh, and I had breakfast — a bowl of jellied tofu.
The great majority of the vendors at the market are elderly or middle-aged; young people are very few, and the odd one you see is with an elder of the family — plainly a “family business.” These boys (girls you almost never see) are all very handsome — strong, dark-skinned, well-muscled — only their clothes and manner are more peasant, stubble on their faces, hair unkempt, some with a cigarette in their mouths. I suppose being handsome is of no use in the countryside, just as having read a lot of books is of no use there either. Still, a farmer going to market day after day to sell vegetables and sell his muscle doesn’t seem very different from an office worker in the city going to work day after day to sell his brains.
Cooking and eating both make me sweat a great deal. This never happened in Beijing, because there I didn’t have to cook, and meals were eaten in air-conditioned surroundings. Now I cook for myself and there’s no air conditioning either; sweating is a nuisance, but compared with using air conditioning to bring the temperature down and suppress sweating, sweating is a more primitive, natural, simple way — no doubt better for your health.
In the evening, going out to the shore, I picked up a dead cicada on the road — probably a male that had just mated and finished its mission. It was preserved in perfect condition; I held it in my hand and studied it for quite a while. Very light; four legs; two pincers; bulging compound eyes; a needle at the mouth; transparent wings — a superb specimen, and I mean to take it home and keep it well. When I got to the shore, a light rain began to fall. The forecast says there’ll be a downpour tonight. I’m looking forward to it, to bring the heat down a notch. I strolled home through the fine drizzle.
2023.7.13 — Rain Comes; Tadpoles; Cicada Nymphs
At some point in the small hours it began to rain — not a little, but not a downpour either — and it went on till seven or eight in the morning. Rain makes it wonderfully cool, and there was wind too; the drops struck everything around and made a lovely, natural noise. It fell on and off, and by noon it had stopped; the temperature began to climb, the damp steamed up, and it was close and hot again. Now and then the sun would show through, a bright sunshower. The ditch outside must be full of water again, so the frogs and tadpoles in it can live a good while yet, and the tadpoles will grow into frogs in due course.
Sure enough, going out in the evening and passing the little ditch, the water had risen again, and the tadpoles in it were there in shoals, swimming, surfacing and diving again to breathe; many were clinging to the edge of the water — they’d grown four legs, but their tails hadn’t shrunk away yet. The moment I came near they swam off into the deep water, and only a few stayed by the bank. I caught one and held it in my palm to look at it: blackish, round-bellied, still with a long tail, its four legs stubby but able to crawl, and to jump, only not with much strength yet. (This ditch is closed at both ends and the water in it is stagnant; when it rains it fills up, and in dry weather it slowly dries out, unless it rains several times in a row.)
After heavy rain, several runnels form across the country paths, and in the low spots in the middle of the road a shallow pool gathers. The water in these is living water, because it flows from one side of the road to the other. In the little pools you can often see small fish, or tadpoles, or water bugs, or river snails. Because the water is living it’s very clear, and very cool. Farmers passing by wash their hands and feet in it. I stood on a stone slab at the roadside too and dipped my feet in to wash them, the water splashing and gurgling in the silent fields.
I needed to pee, so I walked into the little grove, picked a tree, and started; and while I did, I noticed a cicada nymph’s molted shell on the tree, yellow, split open along the back. It was a thick, tall tree — this cicada had found a suitable one. I walked a circle round the tree and saw many more shells, probably all of them from nymphs that had climbed the trunk last night and molted, and luckily none had been spotted by the Shandong people who love to eat them. The trees all around had a great many shells too — one here, two or three there, hanging thick, and more had dropped to the ground beneath.
You see, as long as you go out you’ll always come back with something, especially out in the fields. I went to the shore and waded in the water, then strolled slowly home. Oh, and the sea lettuce still hasn’t come in any great mass. I hear it’s already starting to thin out over Qingdao way. Let’s hope it doesn’t come back to Silver Beach after this.
2023.7.14 — The Way of Nature
I’m no longer afraid of cold showers now. Sitting at home at noon I sweat, and when I’ve sweated I go take a cold shower — sheer comfort. When I get sleepy I take a nap; the wind blows in through the window and puffs the curtain up into billowing sails, and just looking at it cools you. In Beijing I hated air conditioning; I felt that cooling down with AC was not “the way of nature,” and it often left you feeling cold. When it’s hot you’re supposed to sweat — that’s how the human body works — and using AC to suppress that function is to violate nature. Now I live in the countryside with no air conditioning (and no need for it), so it’s cold showers, or swimming in the sea; and since I live in a big place open from north to south (in a big city I could never afford a big place), the fast wind blows straight through, and that’s enough to dispel the summer heat.
At night frogs call, insects chirr, all night without stopping; the calls of these animals are my ASMR as I fall asleep, better than any sleep aid. The compound here isn’t like a compound in the big city — the ecology is good, which again comes of there being few people: many trees, great swathes of lawn, birds flying in, insects crawling everywhere, and the ground-floor flats even have gardens, where the old people grow vegetables all over. In the big city there’s only concrete, or narrow green belts, and hardly any animals at all; even the plants are stiff ornamental shapes. In a place without nature, people don’t become natural either — they’re like pruned greenery, all exactly the same, without any spirit.
2023.7.15 — The Hottest Days Are Already Behind Us
Looking at the 40-day forecast, I see the temperatures ahead aren’t high and are trending down; even into August the high won’t go past 30 degrees. The hottest part of summer is already behind us. At the thought that it will only get cooler from here, I feel lighter all over. And so I’ve lived through both the hottest day of the year at Rushan Silver Beach (34 degrees) and the coldest (minus 13).
Though the temperature isn’t high, the daytime sun is still fierce, so I don’t go out by day — only in the evening. I take a turn through the fields, then watch the sunset at the edge of the fields. Today’s sunset and evening glow were very beautiful: the clouds were only faint, but they drifted slowly and their colors shifted, gentle and harmonious, like a clear spring refreshing to the heart. Weary birds returned to their nests, crickets and frogs were calling, bats came out of their roosts and turned sharply in the air hunting mosquitoes; mosquitoes circled me and I waved them off. I set my phone camera to time-lapse and filmed the sunset, and then regretted not bringing my other phone out, which would have let me film the sky elsewhere. I filmed the sky at the field’s edge for over an hour. Meanwhile many local villagers were hunting cicada nymphs in the little grove with flashlights, the silver beams swaying. I really envy these villagers: by day they work in the fields, and at night they come catch cicadas — not like city people, who are so bored.
Damuzhi Plaza was holding an event again — a beer festival. A stage had gone up; people performed on it, the music deafening. The emcee whipped things up enthusiastically. Tall girls in skimpy clothes showed off pale thighs and stomachs, dancing sexy dances, neon lights flashing. Below the stage people ate and drank, danced and sang, and stood on plastic chairs to photograph the beauties on stage. All around were barbecue stalls: Rushan’s most famous oysters, grilled squid, grilled steamed-bun slices, lamb skewers, beef skewers, Tsingtao Beer. Last came the fireworks, which went on a long time, the smoke drifting out over the sea in the night. Deep on the beach someone was foraging the shallows, the light of a flashlight very faint.
To me these are like two extremes. The fields are silence; the stage is clamor. The fields are cool detachment; the stage is desire. And in this little town by the sea, you have both. Do you choose silence, or clamor? Do you choose detachment, or desire? I walked home along the shoreline in the night; on the beach at night you can make out nothing — no stars in the sky, no moon, sky and earth both pitch black, above and below merged into one. It frightens you and makes you feel very small, like a mote of dust in the universe.